Generally, a vehicle door operating mechanism is configured so that a vehicle door is not retained to be in a closed state by a latch/ratchet mechanism (i.e. the vehicle door becomes unlatchable) once again in a case where a malfunction and the like occurs at a motor while the vehicle door is unlatched. Disclosed in JP2010-31569A is an example of a known vehicle door operating mechanism that is configured so as to include a motor disconnecting operation portion inside a vehicle door so that a latch/ratchet mechanism is operable even in the above-mentioned emergency state. More specifically, the vehicle door operating mechanism disclosed in JP2010-31569A is configured so as to allow a tool to be inserted into an operation hole formed at the vehicle door so as to penetrate therethrough in order to operate the motor disconnecting operation portion, thereby disconnecting the motor from the latch/ratchet mechanism in the above-mentioned emergency state. As a result, the vehicle door operating mechanism is restored to a state where the vehicle door is allowed to be latched.
However, a user may contact a repair engineer or check a vehicle manual book in the emergency because the user does not know of an existence of the motor disconnecting operation portion and of the operation hole, so that the user may not promptly restore the vehicle door operating mechanism to be in the state where the vehicle door is allowed to be latched. Furthermore, even if the user knows of the existence of the motor disconnecting operation portion and of the operation hole, the user needs to operate the motor disconnecting operation portion through the operation hole, so that the user may not promptly restore the vehicle door operating mechanism to be in the state where the vehicle door is allowed to be latched.
A need thus exists to provide a vehicle door operating mechanism which is not susceptible to the drawback mentioned above.